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Monday, September 18, 2006

Another milestone (of sorts)

Grad school is a year behind me and find that I can enjoy reading again - finally. God knows I love to read. My liberary contains thousands of books.Yet, grad school killed my desire to read in a way that only those who experience the process can understand. Until recently, I was not able to hold a book in my hands long enough to flip through the pages without experiencing a slight tremor. I managed to polish off a few mindless Tom Clancy novels when stuck on long flights over the past year. Clancy don't count. My free time went to other pursuits, like movies or computer games, anything but reading. All this changed last week. I read five books in 7 days. The latest, On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King, went down like a fine scotch. As I reached for another book, I realized that nearly every moment of my free time over the last week, a book has called to me. It is nice to be back. I love to read.

Kings's book has been on my reading list since it was published in 2001. Reading it represents another milestone - I am back to normal. Except for blogging, which I picked up to take my mind off of school in 2004, and appears to have stuck. King's book is typical of the type of book I like to read. It offers a glimpse of what makes Steven King tick. I'm my minds eye, King is a dark and moody freak. In reality, he's a normal guy, but, a master of his craft. If he were a mechanic, my truck would be serviced in his shop.

I read 3 or 4 books at a time. I always have. I'm pissed at myself tonight because I realized that I had left a half read copy of 1776 in the seatback of an American Airlines flight from Boston last Friday - I also left New Rules by Bill Maher and the latest Economist magazine, a $35 waste - or make that a $70 waste, I will buy the books again.